The remainder of the trip was uneventful, we stayed the night in Tucson at a pet-friendly, swimming-pool- enabled Heritage Inn motel. Ahhhhhhh. Poooooooollll.

Next morning we headed out early. Drove steadily for many hours. At Alamagordo, we headed up the hill (the 82), the last leg of our journey. The trailer tires had become worrisome, they were heating up and we had to stop several times on the way to let them cool down. Fortunately, the travel gods were smiling on us and provided a nice cool rain all the way up the grade.

We arrived just after noon on July 1 2007. What a beautiful sight. Our rental is on a little hill up in the pines, with a view of the Sacramento Mountains out the back porch. We met the neighbors (B.F. and Gwen) had a beer, reunited with the big dogs, had another beer, and unloaded what we needed for the evening.
We were there for about an hour or so when distant lightning struck a power tower, and killed electricity for a day and a half! Hahaha – welcome to the rural life!

Few random notes: Dave, the explorer-kitty got spooked by a deer and ran up a tree.

Ponderosa pines are not great for climbing because the bark is loose and breaks off easily. He ended up traveling along a branch to where he could jump down to the roof of the house.

Original text by Nanette Thorell 10/5/2007 (re-posted with minor edits)

. . . OK now where was I? Ah. Still in California. Right.  Here we go . . .

Those last two weeks were endless. The boys and I did do a lot of packing, but not nearly enough (as we found out) when we finally did began to load up the trailer we had a lot stuff still to go in boxes and bins.

Note to self: If we ever do move again (not likely – heh) we do NOT have to take every single little thing.

We finally – with the help of our friends (thanks guys!) – got that bad boy loaded and closed up for the road. Check it out:

This is a flatbed carry trailer. John built walls and a ceiling and voila, A moving van! Very cool.

We departed August 31 at 5:00am. In the morning – yes. I had all the animals and one kid in my Saturn. John had the other kid in his truck. We had walkie-talkies, which were great for communicating back and forth. It took us 2 days of hot hot driving and looking at trailer-butt out Interstate 10 East through lower Arizona and New Mexico.

Some pics of the trip…

Trailer-butt going through those wind generators near Palm Springs, early morning day 1.

Here’s how the animals rode . . .

Dave, would NOT stay in his cat carrier but was perfectly happy on the passenger side floor among the candy wrappers and feet.

Diego, on the other hand was very good and stayed happily in his carrier. As long as we had it high enough so he could see out the window.

Chico was the baddest. He kept running back and forth between windows, barked at anyone who looked at him, and tried his best to explore the pedals under my feet. We must have hauled him out of there at least 10 times. Finally he found a comfortable spot (comfortable for him) wedged behind my head sitting on my shoulders and panting in my ear.

Brubaker (parrot) was in her cage, behind my seat she chirped every once in a while but didn’t say much.

More next post . . .

Original text by Nanette Thorell 8/14/2007 (re-posted with minor edits)

I’m slacking this blog because, frankly, there’s just not much to write about at this point. We’re packing what we can. The kids are out of school so I’ve put them to work as well. I took my computer in for a tune-up which included an infusion of decent RAM (thankyouverymuch) and a new DVD burner. So the ol’ box-o-wires is primed and ready for her new home (I checked ahead – broadband is available. Whew!).

Meanwhile, I’ve acquired some cool books: Growing Food In The Southwest Mountains by Lisa Rayner,
New Mexico Gardener’s Guide by Judith Phillips and
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster . All look promising, in terms of helpful information and pretty pictures.

Three more weeks to go!

Original text by Nanette Thorell 6/9/2007 (re-posted with minor edits)